Irwin’s public memorial will take place at Australia Zoo on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast from 9:00am AEST and will be telecast both throughout Australia and internationally.

A red carpet will be rolled out to welcome more than 1,000 invited guests and 3,000 people who secured free tickets.

Prime Minister John Howard is expected to begin the hour-long proceedings, which will be attended by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, zoo staff and friends of the Irwin family…

…The service will include a performance by singer John Williamson [BCIB: Hasn’t that family suffered enough?], but the identities of other celebrity guests and details about the order of events have not been confirmed. There will be a burlesque performance by Amanda Vanstone and Alexander Downer, who will don fishnet tights and balloons, encouraging the guests to pop them.

Actually, I made that last sentence up.

A family friend, showing an alarming irony deficiency, was quoted as saying “I think I’d like to keep it as a simple ceremony …”

As far as I know, not many of the local bloggers have done a Best Of for 2004. Tim’s had a go and Scott Wickstein at Troppo and Tim Blair have Quotes of 2004. So I thought I’d have a weak stab at it myself.

Last year I quoted my favourite soundbite (OK, writebite) from the Entire Internet for 2003.

Here are the contenders for my Favourite Quote from the Entire Internet for 2004. None of them are from non-blog sources, though I didn’t purposely exclude anything.

Last… Theresa Neilsen Hayden’s Making Light is usually more a source of wisdom and Hmmmm! moments than belly laughs. But that’s where I found this quote from a literary blog, unknown to me, called Hitherby Dragons. (The permalink’s gone now.)

Commenteur, Lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere! This is for you, if your workplace has an unreasonable and hysterical WebMarshal or other piece of software which is set at such hair-trigger sensitivity it thinks Road to Surfdomis pornography.

Granted, it recognises links to Andrew Bolt and Angela Shanahan as pornography, which is sensible, but it will also allow you to look at all kinds of silly and timewasting sites. And before some of you jump on me – I think I am as entitled to read blogs in my lunch break as I am to read the dead tree paper. It’s probably not good for me, but it’s my eyesight, innit?

David Tiley kindly suggested TinyUrl, but that didn’t get past the moronic monster of Marshal.

So, all you oppressed, rise up, go to this page and type your desired URL into the Kniff Anonymiser and simply click Aufrufen!

Or you could try this page (anonym Surfen!) which is a better starting point. But for some reason, the evil Marshal didn’t like that, so I just use the WebDiary page.

So, I can read Surfdom and Barista and Troppo and Fafblog and Flute and……. Hooray! it still has some problems– with some blogs you won’t be able to access the archives or read below the fold, but it’s an improvement on my previous torment.

So the giant log trucks will keep thundering down the Tassie and Gippsland highways every few minutes. Alexander Downer will keep alienating and insulting everyone in our region.

The Kyoto protocal wonít be signed. We’ll steal Timor’s oil and gas, and will nurture a failed state in our backyard.

The ABC, Medicare and public education will continue to be under siege. People will continue to consume and consume on more credit. The national (private) debt will balloon even more. With Family First dominating the Senate, the pressure will continue for women to stay out of the workforce. Backyard abortions will be back.

Oh, yeah, and the FTA (shiver).

And the grey, gritty voice of JH will continue to crank out of our radio speakers until heís replaced byÖ who?

I remember someone saying that seeing Rumsfeld or Bush on the TV made them want to chuck a pillow at it. I think she was being much too nice. Next time I see Alexander Downer on the TV, I’ll be sorely tempted to shoot the thing, Elvis style. It’s just lucky for everyone I don’t own a firearm.

On Monday afternoon in Dili, a crucial meeting began. It is the second in a series to discuss the demarcation of a permanent seabed boundary between Australia and East Timor. This apparently simple matter is complicated by a great deal of history, politics, economic interests, legal disagreements, commercial rivalries and diplomatic manoeuvres. At times it even looks like threatening the relationships between the two countries.

In a nutshell, we (that’s Australia, as presented to the world by our wonderful representatives) want to manipulate the seabed boundary so we get the lions’ share of the oil and gas reserves.